Gallygirl's "A journey of 121,226.67 pounds begins with a single penny" diary

katsu

Not in our local library I'll have to rely on you and Tilly for tips.

Any other suggested reads from anyone?

[Deleted User]

Hey GG
Sounds like an interesting book - who is it by as there are a few on amazon with similar names (katsu - lots of 1p ones which would make 2.81 with postage!)
Im reading a book at the mo called Life Swap - its all about downshifting and living more frugally etc.. written by a couple of people who got out of the ratrace and downsized to the country! quite inspiring and makes you think! not so focused on money side of things tho... definitely gonna look into the millionaire one :rotfl:

Wedding sounds lovely GG its lovely around that neck of the woods and yay on the BTL being paid off by the end of the year!

Radish72

Think I need to join the libary and start reading all these books as you have me all intrigued

hypno06

Hello.......can I pull up a chair....?

x

gallygirl

hypno06 wrote: »

Hello.......can I pull up a chair....?

x

Yes of course, but it is very boring around here .

The Millionaire Next Door is by Stanley & Danko and is from 1999 but has more up to date versions. In dollars,a nd being so old you can't compare values, but nevertheless excellent . Am just reading the bit about how if you give your children money they accumulate less but spend more, so no moree subs from mummy :T:rotfl:;).

Santander account opened v easily, will be fed with £587.07 per month (approx ), and all Ccard spending will come out of this account. I have 11 pots on my spreadsheet and if it ain't there it ain't getting spent on :cool:. Can see that working really well . Also separate column for btl regular savings/outgoings. Linked in that page to cash spends on any of the pots, and a total sheet, so I will be able to keep track of my expenditure by category for the 12/13 year. Which is a little bit :A and a big bit :eek:. If I can be arsed of course :rotfl:.

Handyman is sick and guy who was going to help out hasn't been in touch so if anyone wants to help me put some curtain rails up and hang a door please pm me :cool:.

Am off to Ireland till Friday and am leaving the paper gremlins loose for a few days :eek:. Not looking forward to trip, job not going well so far and I will have to be nice to both my team and clients. Hmm. Much buying of alcohol (team) and low cut tops (clients) to come .

See you soon

gg xx

fishfins

Thought I was bad with 9 spreadsheet pots

gallygirl

I have just menu planned and made a shopping list for the next month. Shopping list - beef for tomorrow, bacon.
Menu Plan:
Monday - freezer
Tuesday - freezer
Weds - freezer etc etc

Ex hubby can get packs of chicken breasts cheap so just got a pack - 21 portions for £20.73, and they are massive :T. Bagged up and in freezer. 2 Clonakilty black pudding rings brought back from Dublin, so they need to get cut up and go in. Probably got room for a pack of peas after that, as long as I feed them in individually .

Just saved £14.99 by not ordering plants from Thompson & Morgan . I think that's my best money saving this week :rotfl:.

New tenant getting keys today and giving me the deposit :T. I will be emptying out the rubbish from the garden .

gallygirl

gallygirl wrote: »

.

New tenant getting keys today and giving me the deposit :T. I will be emptying out the rubbish from the garden .

Tenant paid deposit and 1st month's rent . Insisted there was no point me cleaning house as she would clean it all again anyway . Her hubby is going to finish off all little jobs (so have said I'll knock £100 off 1st month's rent):). Think she's a keeper :T. Only took 4 trips to tip, 2 with Mr GG to empty garden . SO GLAD house done, can get back to normal now :j.

I reckon we'll have spent around 9.5k on the btl, but added around 15k to value. The important thing is though that it looks so nice and fresh, which always encourages people to treat it better (hopefully :rotfl:).

Was planning on doing some gardening till I saw the weather :eek:. Could do with sorting house out, then may start ebaying :eek::eek:. DD will be here for dinner later on, and DS bringing his girlfriend. She's very nice and we've got on well so far but just wondering when I should start acting like a MIL - don't want to lull her into a false sense of security .

Looking at my main mortgage spreadsheet - it is creaking at the seams I think as it takes ages to save etc. It will have to wait till the MFiT2 challenge is finished, then I will save a copy and delete a load of stuff. MFiT2 update to be given shortly. Am well under target, but although realistically I won't meet it I won't be too far off. Pretty good going, seeing as we bought the accidental house 1/2 way through :rotfl:.

gallygirl

Being going through the sums again to 'Pay off all by 55 and naff off to Spain' . Am 55 at end of Aug 16 :eek:.

As of today, 129k o/s plus 16k on own btl.

Projected end of 2012 is 119k plus 0. Of that 119k, I need to pay 61k more than Mr GG, due to his funding of the accidental house.

61k to be funded by 1k per month, plus 280 per month freed up by no mortgage payments on own btl. To start in Jan 13, after own btl paid off. That is currently projected to be paid off by Dec 16, so a few months over my 55th birthday. However, this 61k, plus the normal monthly payments, coincidentally means the entire balance of all mortgages will be cleared by Jan 17, so one month later. So all I need to do is bring it forward by 5 months .

OK - what could put a spanner in works:

• me or Mr GG lose jobs
• btls have long voids and/or require a lot of spends
• btl excess rents do not exceed our holiday expenditure
• DS wants to buy a house, meaning I have to take out a mortgage on own btl again
• increased mortgage rates

What could help things along:

• pay rises meaning I pay off more
• tax rebates each year (for pension contributions etc)
• ebaying etc like crazy
• small rent increases
• Mr GG's mum passing away , meaning we can reclaim the accidental house and get rent

But, the clincher is that at some stage, depending on what order we pay mortgages off, one btl will have mortgage paid off so another £230 reduction per month. Or we accept a slightly higher rate on that and keep it and concentrate on the mortgage for here which Mr GG and I pay £600 a month between us. So if we pay that off, with the extra £600 to overpay with......... em we will pay all off sooner but ahven't got a scooby when

So, all fine then :cool:.



What we haven't quite worked out is what we do then. Ideally, chuck all tenants out, paint houses etc and flog, then live on proceeds. Knowing us though we won't want to chuck tenants on the streets . Still, the 2 we sold to buy our place in Spain both came vacant at the right time* so who knows.


* They were in a square. Finished decorating 1st as the 2nd came empty, literally licked up ladders etc and walked across square and started again :eek:.

pammyj74

Wow catching up on your diary, I love the idea of the books, I have just looked online at my local library, they dont have the millionaire one but they have a frugal 1-2-3 step thingy that I will go and have a look at. I dont know if I can live any more frugal than I do without not having a life at all!

I deal with a lot of landlords as I work for a plumbing company and we do landlords safety checks and some of the houses that our engineers have to go in are terrible, the state they are in where the tenants dont look after the place it awful. It puts me off doing a BTL myself.